A radio control model vehicle, such as a radio control automobile, boat, or airplane, may be controlled remotely by a transmit controller. A transmit controller is often an exclusively hardware device with an exclusively hardware built-in user interface. In a transmit controller, all user input may be received through mechanical hardware components such as knobs, dials, wheels, and switches. Output to the user might be provided solely through labeled positions of the hardware components and a few LED's.
The built-in user interface of a transmit controller may be separated into two parts: a control user interface and a parameter user interface. The control user interface directly controls the movement of the model vehicle. For example, in a typical model automobile, the control user interface includes a steering wheel and a throttle trigger. When the user turns the steering wheel, the wheels of the vehicle may move accordingly. When the user displaces the trigger toward the grip, the vehicle may accelerate, and when the user displaces the trigger away from the grip, the vehicle may brake.
The parameter user interface allows a user to set operational parameters which indirectly control the operation of the vehicle. These parameters may be stored a memory of the transmit controller. The parameters may affect how the transmit controller translates input from the control user interface into output to the model vehicle. The transmit controller can be said to “determine” an output signal to the model vehicle based on the parameters and the input to the control user interface. In other words, the parameters may determine whether or not the transmit controller modifies a control instruction from the control user interface and, if the control instruction is modified, the parameters may determine how the control instruction is modified.
For example, some model vehicles have reversed steering servos, meaning the vehicle will turn left when the transmit controller directs it to turn right, and turn right when the transmit controller directs it to turn left. Accordingly, a user intending to turn the vehicle to the right will observe the vehicle turn to the left, and vice versa. To address this issue, a transmit controller may have a servo reversing parameter stored in memory. If the servo reversing parameter is set to off, the transmit controller may transmit signals normally. If the servo reversing parameter is set to on, the transmit controller may reverse the left/right instructions transmitted to the vehicle, compensating for the vehicle's the reversed steering servo. Accordingly, a user instruction to turn the vehicle to the left will cause the transmit controller to instruct the vehicle to turn to the right, which because of the reversed steering servo will cause the vehicle to turn to the left. Likewise, a user instruction to turn the vehicle to the right will cause the transmit controller to instruct the vehicle to turn to the left, which because of the reversed steering servo will cause the vehicle to turn to the right.
For binary parameters such as servo reversing, a built-in switch in the transmit controller may be acceptable. However, with more complex parameters, typical hardware user interface components may be unwieldy. For instance, an acceleration curve parameter may determine how much the transmit controller will instruct the model vehicle to accelerate in response to varying amounts of movement of the throttle trigger. To specify an acceleration curve, with only dials, switches, and so on can be difficult for most users. In addition, if the user cannot graphically view the acceleration curve the user may have no way to determine if the user has set the acceleration curve correctly.
Typical hardware user interface components may also have limited capability to provide feedback to the user. Informing a user of vehicle speed, battery voltage, engine RPM, and so on with only labels and a few LED's can be difficult. A transmit controller with a built-in graphical user interface could provide a user with a more advanced user interface. However, producing such a transmit controller may be cost-prohibitive. The addition of a graphical display and versatile user controls would require additional components that would add significantly to the cost of the transmit controller. In addition, powering these components would significantly reduce the transmit controller's battery life.
Thus, a need exists for the addition of a better user interface to a transmit controller without the extensive addition of components to the transmit controller.